


Take a Sad Song

by Dracze



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Behind the Scenes, Death Metal (DCU), During Canon, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Old Married Couple, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26215321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracze/pseuds/Dracze
Summary: The heroes and villains prepare to take on the transformed Batman Who Laughs, his army of evil Batmen, and Perpetua.But there's one person who wants a word with Bruce in private before the fighting starts.(Set during the "Death Metal" event)
Relationships: Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 20
Kudos: 126





	Take a Sad Song

**Author's Note:**

> This quick little thing will probably count as canon divergence as more "Death Metal" comes out, but I didn't wanna wait for the official series to conclude before getting this particular idea out there. And hey, it's all made up anyway, so who cares?
> 
> In this version, the villains jailed on former Themyscira escape and join the heroes for the final battle. 'Cause it'd be sweet if that happened. 
> 
> Enjoy!

They're watching him. All of them, eyes turned to him. Old friends. Old enemies. Mixed up together in a single crowd until it becomes difficult to tell who is supposed to be which. 

In a way, if not for the circumstances, it might just be one of the most heart-warming sights Bruce has ever seen.

"You all know the drill," he tells them. "Assume the positions. We'll run through the plan as many times as it takes for everyone to do their part perfectly. And then... we win this. There’s no other option." He turns to the side, and nods at Hex. "Take it away, General."

He leaves Hex yelling at the troops, descends the improvised podium, and passes Diana, who gives him a little nod.

"Should be you up there," he tells her. 

She smiles. "It will be. But they need to hear this from a Batman, too."

" _The_ Batman," Clark adds, smiling. "It's important they remember that. That the real one's on our side."

Bruce doesn't have anything to say to that, so he doesn't try. He turns and leaves the cavern, leaving the noise of it behind, heading for the narrow tunnel leading off to the hangars. There's still work to be done, and he's already planning out his next move: the motorbike repairs, and then the new smoke guns, and —

"Flyboy's right, you know."

Bruce stops, and, for a moment, so does his heart. 

"You're supposed to be out there with the others," he says quietly, without turning around. 

His voice is steady. That's good. It wouldn't do to slip up now. 

"Oh, I know." Joker's voice sounds glib and casual behind him. "They didn't give me a job, though."

"Everyone got a job."

"Not little ol’ me. Apparently they don't trust me, or something. Really hurt my feelings."

Bruce takes a deep breath, mostly to stall, but also to steel himself, because there's nothing for it now. He can't avoid it any longer. 

He turns around. 

Joker's lounging against the wall, hands tucked into the pockets of his old tattered pants. He's wearing a purple blazer, dirty, shabby and worn, and the shirt underneath isn't much better. His hair, long enough to fall past his shoulders, is matted and tangled, badly in need of a wash, and there's a faint fuzz growing over his chin. His frame is even skinnier than it was the last time Bruce saw him, more skeletal, his face long and sunken, his feet bare on the rocky ground. 

He looks a wreck, the way he'd never let himself look back when the world was right. 

And all Bruce wants to do is come up to him and hold him, hold him, hold him.

Joker's smile slants sideways, an excitable, giddy thing, and his eyes shine with a manic spark as he pushes the bat-glasses he stole back off Swamp Thing up to his forehead. 

"Hey, Bats," he whispers. "Long time no see."

Bruce swallows. Before he knows it, he's darting a quick glance around to make sure, but it's exactly as he feared — there's only the two of them in the narrow tunnel. Everyone else's outside, running through their drills or overseeing preparations for the raids. 

Which means that he's walked into a situation he'd been trying to avoid ever since Diana's prisoners joined them: being alone with Joker for the first time in years.

... Well, all right. He can handle it. He knows he can. 

He must.

"You look terrible," he says quietly, forcing himself to keep still, rooted to his spot. 

Joker laughs. The sound's hoarse, worn out much like the rest of him, a pale shadow of his best — or even his usual.

It still catches against that secret place in Bruce's heart that stayed hidden away all those years, scraping at and through some of the shell that's grown around it to the soft tissue underneath.

Fuck.

"Yes, well," Joker says. "You can thank your pal the Wonder Warden for that. She didn't exactly run a spa retreat down there."

And even though his face is marred in lines, even though he looks like a diminished imitation of himself, he still draws Bruce in. His smile is still just as wide and easy as Bruce remembers it. And his eyes — 

His eyes, as green and bright as ever, are laughing up at Bruce in soft, honest fondness. As open and naked in their affection as they've ever been, even under the vicious sheen of cruelty.

Except, now, that last bit is missing. 

And Bruce isn't prepared for the shell around his heart to just burst wide open at that, the way it suddenly does.

 _Fuck_.

"She was keeping you safe," Bruce finds himself saying, taking a step towards Joker before he can think better of it. "You know he'd have killed you otherwise. He'd already tried."

"I'm aware." Joker shrugs, and examines his unpainted, dirty, chewed-up fingernails. "I was there, remember? You, on the other hand..."

"Joker."

"Never even bothered to visit."

"I was a little busy," Bruce bites out. "In case you haven't noticed, an evil cosmic entity's taken over our entire universe."

"I've noticed." Joker's eyes narrow, and there — _there's_ that bite of cruelty, back to dull and darken the affection in his eyes. "And I've also noticed that you left me to the tender mercies of that wonder-pal of yours, Princess Ice Queen, and left me there to _rot_."

"She was the only person I could trust to protect you."

"I could've _helped_ you."

"I couldn't risk it," Bruce whispers. "I'm — I'm not sorry."

Joker sighs, loud, ostentatious. He throws his head back against the cave wall, and his throat bobs as he swallows.

"Doesn't matter now," he says breezily, closing his eyes. "I'm here. You're gonna have to deal with me again whether you like it or not."

"I don't."

"That much is obvious." Joker peers at him through one eye, and his lips stretch into a dry, mocking smirk. He whispers, " _You_ look fantastic, by the way. Rocking that apocalyptic metalhead couture. Finally embracing your inner goth. Living your best rockstar life. It's hot, baby. I love it."

"Joker."

"Let me guess." Joker straightens out, and flicks some invisible lint off his blazer. "This is the part where you do your macho posturing act, and warn me not to mess this up for you. Am I right?"

Bruce stifles a smirk of his own, catching the challenge — and the invitation.

There’s no way in hell he’s ever _not_ gonna accept it.

"I'd hate to disappoint," he says.

And then strides up to Joker, pushes his forearm up against Joker's throat, and pins him to the wall.

"This is _important_ ," he tells Joker when the sharp tip of his cowl's nose brushes Joker's. "I can't have you running around playing your little games. Do you understand? This is bigger than you and me."

"No it isn't," Joker counters, laughing a wheezy, breathless laughter, his eyes feverish now as he twitches between rock and Bruce's body. "Not when you consider how it started."

"It doesn't matter how it started," Bruce growls, pressing up closer still because he can't quite help himself anymore, his nostrils filling up with the smoke of toxin and dirt and gunpowder. 

( _Gotham_ , a part of him thinks. _Home_.)

"What matters is how we finish it," he continues, struggling through the fierce stab of sudden want the smell stirs awake. "And I need you to cooperate. If you don't —"

"Not to worry, baby." Joker's pupils are blown now, nearly all black as he gazes at Bruce with a quickened breath, and his body strains towards Bruce's, smothering the air between them to nothing. "Sure, I might needle people here and there, rile 'em up a bit, just for a bit of fun. Can't help myself, can I? But I'll play ball when it matters. I want things to go back to the way they were, too. More than anyone here."

"That better be true," Bruce mutters, even though he knows, deep in his gut, that it is. 

“Your friend,” Joker whispers to him. “Your aide. Remember?”

Joker’s lips almost, almost graze Bruce’s on the last word. 

And then he pulls away, and smiles, and once again, his eyes shine with nothing but love.

“You and me against him, baby,” he says softly. “I’m in it to the end. And I want to see him go down.”

And all Bruce can say to that is, “All right.”

He doesn't want to step away yet. He's electrified all over in a way he hasn't been in years, with Joker's presence so close, his smell, his breath, the heat of his eyes. It's — it's bad, after going so long without. His old resistance mechanisms are rusty, out of practice, his control worn thin by years of vicious struggle and steadily dwindling hope; and now Bruce's body responds so fiercely he can't be confident he can control it. 

_Home_ , that soft part of him whispers, and as long as Joker's close, his thin body pressed up into Bruce's, that old surge of adrenaline sweeps right through him, and it's almost easy to pretend this _is_ one of Gotham's alleys, that the horrors around them never really happened, and all Bruce wants is to let it last.

But he can't. And a moment is all he can spare.

"Don't let me down," he says, and finally drops his arm from Joker's throat. 

Joker smiles at him, bright, excited and breathless. He isn't even trying to hide how affected he is, and that display of shamelessness undoes what little's left of Bruce's resistance. He laughs quietly, and taps Bruce on the shoulder, and then leans against him for a moment as though it's beyond his power to stop.

And then, he —

He kisses Bruce's cheek. 

"I missed you," he whispers. 

He turns without waiting for an answer, and gives Bruce a little wave, and slips the glasses back over his eyes. Bruce watches him saunter back towards the main training hall until he disappears. 

And that soft part of him thinks, _I missed you, too._


End file.
